


Water Flows

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Marvel, Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Complicated Relationships, Earth, Identity Issues, Intersex Loki (Marvel), M/M, Magical Realism, Minor Injuries, Miðgarðr | Midgard, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Rebuilding, Sexual Tension, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 14:30:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14875538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Post-Ragnarok. Disregards Infinity War.New Asgard is built on Midgard's South Pole, on the back of Loki's magic. Everyone is sinking into what Loki has built - Fandral is more eager to sink into Loki himself.





	Water Flows

The first night Fandral tumbles into Loki’s bed on Midgard, it is because Loki is too exhausted to stop him. 

Fandral watches him from the doorway, watches Loki’s shallow breathing and the pallor of his pale skin: Loki is wearing a black shirt that clings tight to the plane of his flat chest, hugging his hips, and equally dark trousers. Slowly moving forward, he lets his hands go to the laces of the leather shoes Loki wears –  _brogues_ , he calls them – and Loki looks down at him, too exhausted to move.

He doesn’t kick. Doesn’t even speak. Just lets Fandral slowly draw the shoe away from his grey sock, and then he lets Fandral unlace the other. 

“You should have told him,” Fandral says quietly. “You should have told him when he asked you that you couldn’t do it in three days, that you needed more time.”

“I _could_ do it in three days,” Loki says. His voice is hoarse.

The peoples of Midgard had balked at the idea of receiving refugees, any of them, but Loki, with his silver tongue and wearing a face unfamiliar to the peoples of Midgard – the face he’d worn when they’d come down to this planet so many years ago, with its pointed chin and auburn hair, its smattering of freckles and its mismatched eyes – had convinced them to give the Asgardians a wide patch of land that none of them could lay claim to, a land that none of them used, but for a handful of scientists.

( _“And what would you have us do here, hmm?” Volstagg had asked, sarcasm dripping from his tone as he looked over the white expanse of frozen tundra. Antarctica, it is called, right at the South Pole of Midgard’s axis.  “Make castles of snow and ice? Is this your Jötunn heritage coming through?”_

_“I can make this land as verdant and green as Asgard,” Loki had said, pretending to buff his nails. “It won’t take long.”_

_“Three days,” Thor had said, and Loki’s head had snapped toward him, his blue eyes staring. “Can you do it in three days?” And Fandral had seen the hesitation pass over his face, the momentary fear in Loki’s eyes…_

_“Yes,” Loki had said. “Of course.”)_

And so he could.

Fandral looks toward the window, looking out at the blue skies above them. The grass is lush and green for miles upon miles on every side, lush and warm despite how naturally cold it should be down this way – Loki had made an extra layer of something similar to the ozone above them, layering its edges with gases to artificially warm their new realm. And the way grass had sprouted beneath his feet, digging its way into the ice below, and _trees_ had sprouted, new trees…

Iðunn is out there now, bringing out the seeds from her nursery and planting an orchard anew. Outside, Fandral can hear yells and calls as the Æsir, the Vanir, even the few Ljósálfr left amongst their population – and of course, the freed slaves of Sakaar – work to build new homes for themselves, new workshops, new buildings.

“Does it hurt?” Fandral asks softly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Loki says. Fandral presses his lips together, and then he slowly kicks his own boots off, slipping onto the bed beside Loki. Loki doesn’t flinch away from that, either, too tired to so much as _move_ , and Fandral reaches out, unbuttoning Loki’s shirt. “Fandral—” Loki protests, but Fandral presses the collar of his shirt aside, looking at the new wounds under Loki’s collar.

The marks are livid and purple – matching Loki’s new blood – and they criss-cross over his chest, bright under the skin. Fandral has never seen Loki sick with magical exertion before, but he’s seen it happen to Amora, had to carry her home with lightning-strikes of nasty marks all over her body where she’d lost control over the surging magic, where it had burned and bubbled beneath her skin.

“You hate Asgard,” Fandral whispers softly, and he resists the urge to trace one of the marks, uncertain how much it would hurt. “Why would you do this for her people?”

“Because Thor asked me,” Loki whispers. His eyes are far away, and Fandral reaches for some of the water on the table, tilting Loki’s head up with a gentle hand so that he’ll sip some of it. Through his chapped lips, Loki lets out a pained sigh. “You don’t understand what I’ve done… I’ve been gone so long.”

“Less than a decade,” Fandral says.

“Longer,” Loki says. “Sakaar was on a different timestream – I was there five years, at least. And before that, between falling from the Bifrost and Midgard… Decades.”

“Does Thor know?” Fandral asks softly. It is strange, like this, to be lying beside Loki in a bed, on their own – how many times had Fandral dreamed of this moment, dreamed of the day Loki would allow them to lie side by side? It had never been like this, even in his wildest nightmares. It had never been Loki so sick with his magic he couldn’t _move_ , in so much pain he cannot protest at Fandral’s closeness to him.

“No,” Loki mutters. “He doesn’t question what strikes him as obvious.”

“You should tell him.”

“You should go sleep in your own bed,” Loki replies, almost archly, but there is a note of reluctance in his voice, and Fandral sits up in bed, dragging his own blouse over his head and baring his chest to the room. Loki’s gaze goes immediately to the thatch of light hair that dusts gold between his pectoral muscles, sliding over the duskiness of Fandral’s nipples, down to his navel…

“I’m going to unbutton your shirt – I’m going to take it off. Alright?”

“Of all the times to proposition me, Fandral,” Loki says weakly, “this is the least appropriate I have ever heard from you.”

“I’ve done this with Amora before,” Fandral says lowly, and he doesn’t miss the anger that suddenly bursts behind Loki’s eyes – jealousy. He feels something stir low in his belly, a long-held desire for something from Loki… But no. Fandral’s hands make quick work of the buttons of Loki’s shirt. “Skin-to-skin contact will allow… There will be a buffer between the magic that flows through the air and yourself. It will help you heal.”

“How many times?” Loki demands, slightly harshly, and Fandral chuckles. Very gently, he takes Loki up and off the bed, sliding his shirt down over his arms, and Loki lets out a whimper of genuine pain, pressing his face against Fandral’s neck – but already, already that must help him, because Loki relaxes slightly as Fandral pulls his shirt away from his hands and throws it onto the ground.

“Just once,” Fandral murmurs. “It was when you were… After Narfi and Valí. You were away from Asgard for nearly forty years, and Amora and I had a brief encounter, then a… contretemps.” Loki laughs dryly, and ordinarily he would rip himself away from Fandral’s touch, but now he presses right into it, presses his freezing body against Fandral’s own. Fandral looks over the expanse of Loki’s back, where more lilac marks criss-cross over his skin. As carefully as he can, Fandral leans back onto the bed, and he pulls Loki’s body against his own, so that they’re chest-to-chest, so that Loki can bury his face against Fandral’s neck, and Loki’s hands are spread over Fandral’s upper arms, his biceps. “Loki,” Fandral whispers against his hair. “This could have killed you. If you had forced such magic through you for just an hour longer, just minutes longer— This was the work of _months_ , Loki. To do it in three days was madness.”

“They all say I’m mad,” Loki mutters.

“They have no idea,” Fandral mutters, and he hesitates before sliding his hands over Loki’s lower back: Loki lets out a short keen of pain, digging his fingernails against Fandral’s skin. Five years on Sakaar… Decades elsewhere. And Loki could never have done magic like that, could never have done anything even _remotely_ like this over a span of decades, let alone in three days. And now that he’s done it once…

Magic isn’t like a muscle. Magic is like a groove you carve into wood – once you’ve done it once, it’s there forever. Fandral just hopes the scars aren’t.

“You needn’t do this,” Loki whispers against Fandral’s neck, his breath as cold as a winter’s wind, and Fandral shivers. Loki’s legs are spread over Fandral’s own, straddling Fandral’s belly, and despite the cold of his body, Fandral feels arousal coil within his belly.

He’d been so certain he would die, when Hela had arrived – it had been Amora who had gotten them out of it, Amora who had caught each of the Warriors Three and whisked them away, brought them to safety… Fandral had been so furious with her, at the time, until he had seen all Hela could do.

“I’ve wanted to do this for two and a half thousand years,” Fandral whispers in Loki’s ear, and he doesn’t think he imagines the way Loki trembles in response. How many times, _how many times_ , had he and Loki almost kissed in a corridor, how many times had they almost drawn together, but not quite? “I could never understand why you wouldn’t believe me.”

“It was never a matter of not believing you,” Loki mumbles. His tone is sleepy, now, and Fandral wonders if Loki has slept alongside many people in the previous years, if he has often enjoyed the intimacy of someone else in his bed. “There was always a limit to the iniquity even I could indulge in.” There is such self-loathing in Loki’s voice, heavy and intermingled with his fatigue, and Fandral presses his lips together.

“How could it be iniquity?” Fandral asks softly. “I only ever wanted to love you.” Loki doesn’t say anything back. His breathing has evened out, his occasional pained noises smoothing out and going silent, and Fandral sighs against Loki’s hair, which is spiced with some strange, peppery scent that Fandral doesn’t recognise.

With Loki blanketing him, keeping him cool despite the warmth and humidity of this faux-summer at the South Pole, Fandral tips his head back, and he lets his eyes close. Loki’s heart beats even slower than Fandral’s own – the Æsir have slow-beating hearts, but the Jötnar, it seems, have even slower blood in their veins.

Fandral lets himself drift into sleep. It’s easier than it should be.

☾ ❅ ☼ ❅ ☉ ❅ ☼ ❅ ☽

The second time Fandral slides into Loki’s bed, it is several months later.

New Asgard is developing nicely, with tall-buildings and well-established streets, and Iðunn’s orchard is growing very fast indeed, much like the other shrubs and fruits and plants that are being grown from scratch. Iðunn’s trees and bushes with flower and fruit within the year, and the others will grow easily by the next…

And in the meantime, they have supplies to tide them through. The Ark had been well-laden with long-lasting foodstuffs, and Fandral has seen Loki teaching the children which seaweeds and plants they can eat. The animals of this place are fascinated by the Asgardians that have now made their home here – the little toddling birds, the _penguins_ , look with deep curiosity at any Æsir or Vanir that passes them by, and the seals delight when the children play amidst them, throwing balls or sharing fish with them.

Loki prefers a different friend native to this strange new realm. Fandral stands on the beach, watching as Loki wades out into the water – and he should be up to his neck at least, Fandral is certain, but he isn’t. Fandral stands very still, staring at the black, shining blubber of the animal that comes to meet him, letting out a high, chittering sound.

Loki responds, mimicking the sound – or perhaps replying. The whale nudges hard against Loki’s thigh, and Loki laughs, patting its side hard. Fandral sees the transformation, sees Loki’s pale flesh turn a tar-shiny black as his body shifts in size, and then Loki dives into the water with the whales, as one of them.

Fandral lets out the breath he had not realised he was holding, and he watches as the whales play together, diving in and out of the water with this new friend in their numbers.

Fandral’s heart beats fast in his chest, and he realises he is smiling to himself.

“What did you do with them?” Fandral asks later that night, as he sits on the edge of Loki’s bed. When he had come to Loki’s bedroom, slipping in from the balcony as he had done a handful of times to Loki’s quarters back on Asgard, when they were both merely teenagers that wished to speak past their bedtimes. It had all seemed so simple then. “The whales?”

“They aren’t whales,” Loki says, dragging his towel through his hair. Another towel is loosely fastened about his waist, and Fandral can see his skin in the waning light – the marks from before are well-healed now, and he can’t so much as see their ghost on Loki’s skin. Fandral wonders, distantly, if they are still evidenced beneath the surface, if Loki still feels their pain. “Technically, they’re dolphins.”

“What’s a dolphin?” Fandral asks.

“They’re small whales, with teeth.” Fandral laughs.

“They didn’t seem so small to me.” Loki draws the towel away from his hair, and then heat draws itself through the thick locks of his hair, coming away in clouds of white steam, and Fandral sees Loki’s hair thick and almost _fluffy_ , a cloud about his head. Loki hesitates, holding the towel in his hands, and he looks at Fandral as if _Fandral_ is a potentially dangerous beastie, unlike the _dolphins_ he had been swimming with not an hour before. “It must feel so unnatural to you. To be expected to hold one form all the time.”

“Yes,” Loki agrees. “River water might be kept in a jar for a time, but it is meant to flow. And it will, once the glass is broken.”

“Seems to be like you’ve climbed back into the jar,” Fandral murmurs. “Asgard is its people, after all.”

“I would rather this jar than another,” Loki says, at length. “For now.” There is a distance in his eyes, and Fandral watches his face, watches the part of his lips, and Loki says, “Have you come to sleep with me?”

“If you don’t mind,” Fandral murmurs, wondering if he is overstepping here, wondering if Loki will refuse him, if Loki will turn him away. Loki does not.

“It’s been strange, sleeping alone,” Loki says softly. “I haven’t been used to it.”

“You didn’t sleep alone, on Sakaar?” Fandral asks. Loki shakes his head, almost emphatically: _never_. Fandral feels slightly sick. “Thor… He hasn’t said much of what happened on Sakaar. He told us of the arena, of the way the pleasure planet was structured. He… He implied you had been—” Fandral trails off.

“Abused?” Loki asks, mildly.

“Yes.”

“No,” Loki murmurs. “I wasn’t abused. Everything I did, I did of my own accord. Everything that happened to me, I encouraged. Thor would rather believe otherwise: it is easier for him that way. You understand me better.”

“I don’t understand you,” Fandral says. Loki smiles, and he takes a very slow step forward, reaching out: Fandral feels the cool of Loki’s palm against the side of his jaw, feels Loki’s touch against him, and he is astonished by how fast his heart beats in his chest, how hot his skin feels.

“It isn’t a matter of understanding me,” Loki whispers, and Fandral thinks of Loki’s sleepy words against his neck, thinks of his talk of iniquity. “The fact that you try is enough.” He draws his thumb over Fandral’s cheek, slowly, gently.

“Let me understand one thing,” Fandral whispers. “Why— You said it was the thought of iniquity that stopped you before. What’s different?”

“Sakaar has changed my definition of iniquity somewhat,” Loki murmurs. It is spoken as a joke, gently huffed out, but the words make nausea burst in Fandral’s belly, clawing its way up toward his throat. “It isn’t— I was always so frightened, to stray toward men within the bounds of Asgard. But that realm is gone now, turned into dust. My first encounter was with a man, you know.”

“Really?”

“No, that was a lie.” Fandral leans back slightly, at the darkness in Loki’s tone, the intensity of his stare, the tight press of his hard palm against Fandral’s jaw. “But the second time, it was a man. A Ljósálf. You remember, when we were in Alfheim for the first time without Einherjar guarding me, and I came from the brothel?” Fandral feels his lips part – he well recalls that moment, the way he had whooped and delighted at seeing Loki step bleary-eyed from a brothel, his cheeks pink in his embarrassment.

“It was a man?”

“Yes,” Loki murmurs. “On Sakaar, too.”

“One man, for five years?”

“One man.”

“What was he like?”

“He was everything,” Loki whispers. “But he doesn’t matter now.”

“He wouldn’t be angry?” Fandral asks softly. “That you would stay at his side for five years, and move on so easily?”

“He would be more angry that I betrayed him to aid Thor,” Loki murmurs. Fandral wonders how many times Loki has ruined a thing he loved for Thor’s sake. He wonders how many sacrifices Loki has made for Thor, in the scheme of things. He wonders how many betrayals it will take to balance that out. “But he doesn’t believe in the past. He worships the present.”

“What do you worship?” Fandral asks.

“Death,” Loki answers. “I was a priest, for a time, you know.”

“Really? You don’t strike me as priest-like. Better tended to divinity than to worship, I think.”

“As a priest,” Loki says, and his hands slide over Fandral’s shoulders, even as he drops into Fandral’s lap. He straddles Fandral’s thighs with ease, and Fandral takes in a sharp inhalation, his chin touching against Loki’s chest, feeling the cool radiate from his body. “I was both.”

“Look at you, full of contradictions.” Fandral says softly. “Nothing changes.”

“Things change,” Loki corrects him. “I change.” But before Fandral can respond, before Fandral can question precisely what that odd little statement means, Loki is leaning forward and pressing his mouth against Fandral’s, his cold lips pressing against Fandral’s own, his tongue rough and like molten ice where it plays against Fandral’s, where it licks into his mouth and forces Fandral to open up, to allow him in. Fandral does, easily – eagerly – and he slides his hands up Loki’s back, feeling the hardness of the flesh, so much harder than an Æsir’s should be.

Loki isn’t Æsir.

☾ ❅ ☼ ❅ ☉ ❅ ☼ ❅ ☽

The third time, Loki is spread out on Fandral’s bed like an offering, his thighs parted, his every oddity on display. Fandral slides between Loki’s legs, worships his body with his lips parted, ghosts his hot breath over every inch of skin he can reach.

Loki’s like ice: ice melts.

☾ ❅ ☼ ❅ ☉ ❅ ☼ ❅ ☽

The fourth time, Fandral asks, “Did he love you?”

“I don’t know,” Loki says. “It’s difficult to say.”

“Did you love him?”

“Even harder.”

“Harder than he loved you?”

“Harder even to say.” Loki is seated on the floor in front of his bed, and Fandral carefully draws a brush through his hair. He isn’t greasing it back, Fandral has noticed, in recent days. Perhaps because Fandral will brush his hair for him: perhaps because Thor no longer delights in shocking him with static, as he did in Loki’s youth.

“Do you love me?” Fandral asks, quietly.

“I think that I could,” Loki says. Fandral’s heart feels like it will burst – or shatter. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Fandral whispers. There are no tangles in Loki’s hair ( _there never are)_ , but Fandral brushes it anyway. “Why did you come back to Midgard with us? You would you subject yourself to more of Asgard’s treatment, when you’ve always hated it so much?”

“I never hated Asgard, at first,” Loki says softly. The hairbrush drops to the floor, and Fandral drags his fingers slowly through the thick, dark locks, feels their weight against his palm, feel how soft the hair is. The peppery scent has faded away, with time. Fandral wonders if he misses it. “It wasn’t until I realised how much Asgard hated me than I returned the favour.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“You love Asgard,” Loki says. It doesn’t sound like an accusation – it sounds like a prayer. “I wish I could be like you.”

“You wish you could be a patriot?” Fandral asks, amusedly, but there is no amusement, no mockery in Loki’s voice. He is completely, unerringly serious.

“I wish I had your bravery.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not so brave.”

“You’re braver than anybody I know.”

“Even Thor?”

“Especially Thor.” Fandral feels his brow furrow, his lips twisting as he takes in those two words, tries to puzzle out their meaning. _Especially_ Thor? Loki does not feel Thor is a coward, surely. How could Fandral be braver than Thor?

“And what monster could I face,” Fandral asks softly, “that Thor wouldn’t?”

“Me,” Loki answers.

They slide into bed with Loki’s thigh pressed between Fandral’s legs, and Loki spends hours teasing him. It is unspeakable: it is everything Fandral ever ached for.

☾ ❅ ☼ ❅ ☉ ❅ ☼ ❅ ☽

The fifth time (and the sixth time)…

When Thor asks if Loki has any prospects in mind in New Asgard, Loki says, “Fandral and I are involved.” Fandral freezes, his hand hovering over the slice of bread he had been reaching for. Thor grits his teeth, turns his head to glare with his single eye at Fandral, but he hears the meaty _thunk_ of a hard foot hitting a muscled calf. “Don’t look at him. Look at me.”

“You are trying to provoke me,” Thor says lowly. “Loki, you cannot… You cannot take up with a man. This isn’t Sakaar.” Loki laughs, drinking heavily from a wine glass despite the earliness of the morn.

“This is Midgard,” he points out.

“This is _Asgard_.”

“Asgard is dead,” Loki says sweetly. “Good riddance.” Fandral glances to Hogun, Brunhilde, Volstagg and Heimdall, each of whom are completely silent, who just like Fandral are uncertain as to what will happen next. Thor is staring Loki in the face, as if taking him in. For just a second, he reminds Fandral of Odin, the way his eye seems cold, distant, analytical…

The resemblance fades as quickly as it had come.

Thor leans back in his seat.

“This is Midgard,” he agrees, echoing Loki’s words. _And what monster could I face, that Thor couldn’t? Me._ “You mustn’t flaunt it, Loki. To provoke the people now, to hit too hard against their prejudices… The both of you could be at risk.” Thor’s expression is full of gentleness, full of care, and Fandral wishes Sif were here. She is upon Midgard, that Fandral knows, but she had visited only for a few weeks some months back, and is now back amidst her new friends, in America.

“I won’t flaunt it,” Loki murmurs. “Besides, I won’t be here long. My enchantments are holding… Your new Asgard will last here for some thousand years, if you need it.”

“You’re going somewhere?” Hogun asks, lowly. Fandral traces his grim friend’s face, and he sees naught but distant curiosity.

“I might look like ice, Hogun, but I am as water,” Loki murmurs. “I must flow elsewhere.”

“And Fandral?” Heimdall asks slowly. “What of him?” Loki glances to the watcher, tilting his head slightly to the side, but Fandral speaks before Loki can.

“He’s taking me with him,” Fandral says. Loki doesn’t allow surprise to cross over his features: perhaps he isn’t surprised at all. Loki smiles, and he watches Fandral for a long few moments. There’s something intensely invigorating about it, feeling the warmth of Loki’s gaze on his countenance here, at the breakfast table… Loki is the most unpredictable he’s ever been. Is it so bad, Fandral wonders, that he loves it?

“Who says I can spare you?” Thor asks, and Fandral looks to him, but Thor is smiling, offering a _fond_ curve of his lips. The sternness, the anger, is gone… Thor is so different to Odin. Fandral is grateful. “You won’t go without contact, will you, Loki? You’ll stay in contact?”

“Heimdall will hear me,” Loki murmurs. “When I let him.” Heimdall’s lips twitch, but his golden eyes remain stormy.

“Sakaar changed you,” he says knowingly. There is a hint of regret in his voice.

“I changed it in kind,” Loki murmurs. “And thus why you should not want me here… New Asgard requires stability. I’m not stable.” Volstagg lets out a low, amused sound.

“When have you been?” Loki smiles, and then he reaches up, drawing his knuckles over his own cheek in a completely _un-Loki-like_ gesture. It’s unsettling, and it makes Fandral’s heart skip a beat.

“Oh, Volstagg,” Loki murmurs. “You know me so well.” He says it like it’s the first time he’s ever realised it, and brightness shines in his eyes, his hand sliding down to his chest, and then lower, to the left side of his rib cage ( _his first rib cage. He has two now, remember?)_. Over his Jötunn heart. “I’ve missed all of you so much,” Loki murmurs. Every single one of them is silent, uncomfortable with such affectionate words from such an unaffectionate man – even Brunhilde, still new to Loki’s ways, is staring at him with wide eyes. Loki smiles, showing his teeth, and he drains his glass. “I have work to do.”

“No, you don’t,” Hogun says as Loki stands from the table, beginning to saunter away.

“I’ll make some.” Fandral stands from the table, too quickly, so quickly he hits his knee against the table’s edge and nearly knocks his chair over, but nobody says anything. He follows after Loki, and Loki pins Fandral against a niche in the wall of the new palace, so modest compared to how it once was.

Loki lifts Fandral as if he weighs nothing at all, and fucks Fandral against the wall, lets Fandral sink down onto him with every shift of his body. With Fandral’s arms tight around Loki’s neck, his mouth pressed against the base of Loki’s throat to keep himself from moaning outside, and Loki fucks Fandral so hard Fandral thinks he will break into pieces.

He doesn’t.

Loki laughs at him when he stands on weak knees afterward, feeling Loki’s spend slide cool over his hot, sweat-shiny thighs, and perhaps a younger Loki, half a millennium ago, or even a century ago – even thirty years ago, perhaps a younger Loki would have let Fandral try to force his own legs into strength once more, like jelly as they are.

This Loki doesn’t. Once Fandral has loosely laced up his trousers once more, Loki sweeps his hands under the backs of Fandral’s knees and Fandral’s shoulders, and he carries Fandral like a bride through the corridors of the palace, toward Loki’s bedroom.

“Someone will see,” Fandral murmurs.

“You injured your leg,” Loki says unsympathetically. “Poor little lamb.” Fandral laughs.

“Will you really take me with you?” Fandral asks.

“If you want me to.” Fandral looks up at Loki’s face, at his lips quirked into an easy smirk full to the brim with mischief. Fandral misses Asgard. He misses it like a hollow ache in his chest, misses everything about it – already, the Asgardians are changing, already wiser than they were, with a hint of tragedy. How can one be a patriot when the nation that bore you is gone?

“He was right,” Fandral murmurs. “Sakaar changed you.”

“I changed myself,” Loki replies. “It is in my nature.”

“Chaos never looked as beautiful as it did wrapped up in you.” Loki pushes the door open, and he drops Fandral heavily onto Loki’s mattress, which is hard and unyielding. Fandral groans, feeling himself open and _wet_ , and he tips his head back onto the bed. “Won’t you have me again?”

“I have you already,” Loki says. Fandral smiles.

“So you do. Won’t you have me again?” After a moment’s pause, Loki nods a slow assent, and he slips back onto the bed with him.

☾ ❅ ☼ ❅ ☉ ❅ ☼ ❅ ☽

The seventh time, Loki has slipped them onto an intergalactic cruiser, and he has slid them easily into the most impressive suite on the ship. Fandral is astonished by how easily he throws credits around, how he moves through the ship’s bar and its corridors as if he’s been on a thousand ships just like this one, as if he’s done this a million times.

“Who are you?” Fandral demands, even as he pins Loki over the mahogany desk, and Loki laughs against the wood.

“The answer lies in multiplicity,” Loki answers, leaning back into Fandral’s hand as it slides between his thighs, finds the slit of his cunny, feels its growing wetness under his fingers.

“That isn’t an answer,” Fandral chides, and he slides a finger deep inside him, pressing down as he thrusts inside, and Loki groans. “Who _are_ you? You walk on this ship like you’ve been on it all your life.”

“I designed it.” Fandral freezes in the middle of pressing another finger into Loki’s cunny, looks up at the great, gold-decorated room around him, thinks of how distinctly massive the cruiseliner is, how easily it coasts through space…

“Truly?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous,” Loki says, and he grinds back against Fandral’s fingers. “Are you going to fuck me or not?” Fandral laughs, and he leans forward, ghosting hot breath over the length of Loki’s spine.  

“I will,” Fandral promises.

He does.

☾ ❅ ☼ ❅ ☉ ❅ ☼ ❅ ☽

The eighth time is like the first. No sex: just lying in bed together.

Loki wakes from a nightmare and he shakes so violently that Fandral doesn’t know what to do. He throws the flowers set in the vase on the windowsill to the ground, and his vomit spatters into the vase. His skin is a pallid, lilac-tinged white, chalky and unhealthy, and when Fandral reaches for his hand, Loki lets him take it. Loki squeezes Fandral’s hand tightly, interlinking their fingers, and then he vomits again.

“You dreamed about Sakaar?” Fandral asks.

“No.” An ugly, harsh gagging sound, and then a liquid spatter that churns in the china bowl. “Before Sakaar.”

“After you fell from the Bifrost?”

“Before that.”

“Narfi and Valí?”

“Before that.”

“Angrboða?”

“Before that.”

“You don’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t.”

“Alright.” It _is_ alright, Fandral realises. There are a thousand things he doesn’t know about Loki, despite Loki seeming to know Fandral from the surface of his skin right down to his bones, and Fandral finds he doesn’t mind, in this moment. If Loki is surprised, he doesn’t show it.

He vomits until there’s nothing less, and then he rinses his mouth out with a mouthwash that steams from his tongue.

Then he slides back into bed, and he wraps his cold body around Fandral’s, holds Fandral’s back tightly against his chest as if he truly feels the cold that hits him, as if he wants Fandral to keep him warm. “Are you cold?” Fandral asks.

“Biologically, yes.” Fandral laughs. Loki laughs too, his breath mussing Fandral’s hair.  “Fandral.”

“Yes?”

“Do you love me?” There’s a long pause, and Fandral leans back against Loki’s chest, feeling his heart beat so _fast_ compared to Loki’s, which must run at half his speed.

“I think I could,” Fandral says. There’s a slight tickle against the back of his neck – Loki’s lips moving. Moving to smile.

“You should sleep,” Loki murmurs. Fandral smiles.

“You should sleep in your own bed.” It amuses him, to echo Loki’s words back to him, and from what he can tell, it amuses Loki too. Perhaps it is foolish of him, to feel safe in Loki’s arms, when he knows Loki to be dangerous – so dangerous the extent of the fact is unthinkable. Unutterable. Ineffable.

Loki sleeps before Fandral does. His hold looses on Fandral’s belly, his body relaxing against Fandral’s own… Fandral feels immeasurable peace, when he closes his eyes. He doesn’t know who Loki is, not truly, but he will find out. And he is excited – oh so excited – to feel Loki change even as he uncovers more about him.

Water flows.

Fandral can swim.

 

**Author's Note:**

> For my fellow DashingFrost shippers, I've now set up a [Fuck Yeah DashingFrost Tumblr](https://fuckyeahdashingfrost.tumblr.com), and I'm running a [DashingFrost week](https://fuckyeahdashingfrost.tumblr.com/post/174693891923/dashingfrost-week-2018) at the end of the month! Check it out! <3
> 
> Feel free to HMU on [Tumblr.](http://dictionarywrites.tumblr.com) Requests are always open.


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